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Tombstone Tuesday – Thomas Buckley (1795-1880)

This gravestone is in Utley Cemetery, Keighley, West Yorkshire. It is grave number 169 in unconsecrated ground in Section B of the cemetery. I have only just acquired the photograph today courtesy of a Bradford City Council bereavement services officer.

I bought a copy of the National Burial Index at a family history fair last weekend and did a bit of searching. I found some ancestors buried at Utley Cemetery and emailed Bradford Council for any information such as plot numbers or a map.

To my total surprise and gratitude they sent me a reply today about the people I identified plus other related ancestors – and photographs of the headstones. So a huge thanks for a superb service. I have replied and expressed my thanks.

Anyway back to the story.

The plot was bought by Thomas Buckley, my 3x great grandfather. The grave is the resting place of Thomas (1795-1880); his first wife Henrietta Mason (1794-1861); their daughter Mary Barker (1826-1887); and Thomas’s second wife Maria Hindle (1800-1871).

Much of this information is new to me as a result of receiving the photograph and doing a bit of digging this afternoon.

For instance I didn’t know that Thomas and Henrietta had three children who died in infancy. I didn’t know that Thomas had married again after Henrietta died. I discovered this afternoon that he married Maria Hindle in Q3 1866.

When I checked the 1871 census again I noticed that Thomas is shown as married but no wife is there – I hadn’t picked this up before. So I searched for Maria Buckley and found her as an inmate in the Union House.

There is no indication in the census return that she was either deaf-and-dumb, or blind, or a lunatic or an imbecile or an idiot. However, the 1871 census was taken on 2nd / 3rd April and Maria died just two months later on 2nd June. So I do wonder if she was so poorly that Thomas couldn’t look after her or if there was some other reason why she would be in the Union House.

I need to take a closer look at Thomas and his family and perhaps do an Ancestor Profile post in the future.